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Description

Watermark:

Avers:

The engraving on banknote, presumably, made from the paint by italian artist Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (14 February 1483 - 6 June 1561). There is no evidence that Columbus ever sat for a portrait, and it would have been an unusual thing to do in those days. So the sources (and the artists) for these works and what if any resemblances they bear to the real Columbus are not clear.

Christopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; Portuguese: Cristóvão Colombo; born between 31 October 1450 and 30 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a Genoese explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa (today part of Italy). Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World.

In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus' proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward, eventually received the support of the Spanish Crown, which saw in it a chance to enter the spice trade with Asia through a new westward route. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in a New World, landing in the Bahamas archipelago, on an island he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.

Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century), his voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion.

Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians"). Columbus' strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements on the island of Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

He did four voyages to North America.

In his first voyage:

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: a larger carrack, the Santa María ex-Gallega ("Galician"), and two smaller caravels, the Pinta ("The Pint", "The Look", or "The Spotted One") and the Santa Clara, nicknamed the Niña (lit. "Girl") after her owner Juan Niño of Moguer. The monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).

Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile, where he restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in Gran Canaria, he departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. A lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land about 2:00 on the morning of 12 October, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard. Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.

Modern placenames in black, Columbus' placenames in blue.

Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador; the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and based on what one would expect based on the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's venture's course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus' San Salvador), Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.

The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno, or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.

From the entry in his journal of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them, "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."

San Salvador Island (known as Watlings Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of the Bahamas. It is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus' first expedition to the New World, San Salvador Island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12 October 1492, he named it San Salvador after Christ the Saviour. Columbus records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who called their island Guanahani, were "sweet and gentle".

In the upper right corner is the appearance of the compass, which, supposedly, Columbus used in the XV century.

Centered is Bank of Bahamas logo.

It is Mellita quinquiesperforata or Keyhole Sand Dollar - a tropical species of sand dollar, a flat, round marine animal related to sea urchins, sea stars, and other echinoderms.

The selection of the sanddollar as the logo of the Central Bank was made by the first Governor, Mr. T. B. Donaldson, who, in addition to wanting something Bahamian, was "intrigued by the elegance and history" of this unusual specimen of marine life, of which an interesting legend exists. The markings on the shell of the sanddollar are said to symbolize the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ".

Anniversary logo on the left, dedicated to 500 anniversary of the discovery of America (Bahamas).

The logo represents:

Spanish galleon "Santa Maria", the flagship of the first expedition of Columbus sailing on the sea the sun shone. Her foremast shows pennant of Expedition. Nearby is Royal Palm tree.

On both sides of the center are the Bahamas flags and the national flower of Bahamas - Tecoma Stans.

Tecoma stans or Yellow Elder is a species of flowering perennial shrub in the trumpet vine family, Bignoniaceae, that is native to the Americas. Common names include yellow trumpet bush, yellow bells, yellow elder, ginger - thomas. Tecoma stans is the official flower of the United States Virgin Islands and the floral emblem of the Bahamas.

The Yellow Elder was chosen as the national flower of the Bahamas because it is native to the Bahama Islands, and it blooms throughout the year.

Selection of the yellow elder over many other flowers was made through the combined popular vote of members of all four of New Providence's garden clubs of the 1970s - the Nassau Garden Club, the Carver Garden Club, the International Garden Club, and the Y.W.C.A. Garden Club.

They reasoned that other flowers grown there - such as the bougainvillea, hibiscus, and poinciana - had already been chosen as the national flowers of other countries. The yellow elder, on the other hand, was unclaimed by other countries (although it is now also the national flower of the United States Virgin Islands).

Lobatus gigas, commonly known as the queen conch, is a species of large edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family of true conchies, the Strombidae. This species is one of the largest molluscs native to the tropical northwestern Atlantic, from Bermuda to Brazil, reaching up to 35.2 centimeters (13.9 in) in shell length. L. gigas is closely related to the Goliath conch, Lobatus Goliath, a species endemic to Brazil, as well as the rooster conch, Lobatus gallus.

Denominations in numerals are in top left and lower right corners. In words lower, centered.

Revers:

On the right side are the first three ships of Christopher Columbus - "Santa Maria", "Pinta" and "Nina".

La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción (Spanish for The Holy Mary of the Immaculate Conception), or La Santa María, was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage. Her master and owner was Juan de la Cosa.

The Santa María was built in Pontevedra, Galicia, in Spain's north-west region. The Santa María was probably a medium-sized nau (carrack), about 58 ft (17.7 m) long on deck, and according to Juan Escalante de Mendoza in 1575, the Santa Maria was "very little larger than 100 toneladas" (about 100 tons, or tuns) burthen, or burden, and was used as the flagship for the expedition. The Santa María had a single deck and three masts.

The other ships of the Columbus expedition were the biggercaravel-type ships Santa Clara, remembered as La Niña ("The Girl"), and La Pinta ("The Painted"). All these ships were second-hand (if not third- or more) and were not intended for exploration. The Niña, Pinta, and the Santa María were modest-sized merchant vessels comparable in size to a modern cruising yacht. The exact measurements of length and width of the three ships have not survived, but good estimates of their burden capacity can be judged from contemporary anecdotes written down by one or more of Columbus' crew members, and contemporary Spanish and Portuguese shipwrecks from the late 15th and early 16th centuries which are comparable in size to that of the Santa Maria. These include the ballast piles and keel lengths of the Molasses Reef Wreck and Highborn Cay Wreck in the Bahamas. Both were caravel vessels 19 m (62 ft) in length overall, 12.6 m (41 ft) keel length and 5 to 5.7 m (16 to 19 ft) in width, and rated between 100 and 150 tons burden. The Santa María, being Columbus largest ship, was only about this size, and the Niña and Pinta were smaller, at only 50 to 75 tons burden and perhaps 15 to 18 meters (50 to 60 feet) on deck (updated dimensional estimates are discussed below in the section entitled Replicas).

A Spanish vessel in those days was given an official religious name, but was generally known by a nickname, oftentimes a feminine form of either her master's patronymic, or of her home port. Bartolomé de Las Casas, a priest and historian who extensively chronicled Columbus' expeditions, never used the name Santa María in his writings, and instead called the ship La Capitana ("flagship") or La Nao. Indeed, Columbus himself, in his detailed logs, only called it La Capitana. Some claim that the ship was known to her sailors as Marigalante ("Gallant Maria"), but that nickname was in fact given to the Santa María '​s namesake replacement, used on Columbus's second voyage.

La Niña (Spanish for The Girl) was one of the three Spanish ships used by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in his first voyage to the West Indies in 1492. As was tradition for Spanish ships of the day, she bore a female saint's name, Santa Clara. However, she was commonly referred to by her nickname, La Niña, which was probably a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer. She was a standard caravel-type vessel.

The other ships of the Columbus expedition were the caravel-type Pinta and the carrack-type Santa María. The Niña was by far Columbus's favorite. She was originally lateen sail rigged caravela latina, but she was re-rigged as caravela redonda at Azores with square sails for better ocean performance. There is no authentic documentation on the specifics of the Niña's design, although Michele de Cuneo, who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, mentioned that the Nina was "about 60 toneladas" (60 tons), which may indicate a medium sized Caravel of around 50 feet (15 m) in length on deck. Often said to have had three masts, there is some evidence she may have had four masts.

The Niña, like the Pinta and Santa María, was a smaller trade ship built to sail the Mediterranean sea, not the open ocean. It was greatly surpassed in size by ships like the Peter von Danzig of the Hanseatic League, built in 1462, 51 m (167 ft) in length, and the English carrack Grace Dieu, built during the period 1420-1439, 66.4 m (218 ft) in length and weighing between 1,400 tons and 2,750 tons.

La Pinta (Spanish for The Pint (liquid measure), The Look, or The Spotted One ) was the fastest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. The New World was first sighted by Rodrigo de Triana on the Pinta on October 12, 1492. The owner of the Pinta was Cristobal Quintero. The Quintero brothers were ship owners from Palos. The owner of the ship allowed Martin Alonso Pinzon to take over the ship so he could keep an eye on the ship.

The Pinta was a caravel-type vessel. By tradition Spanish ships were named after saints and usually given nicknames. Thus, the Pinta, like the Niña, was not the ship's actual name. The actual name of the Pinta is unknown. The origin of the ship is disputed but is believed to have been built in Spain in the year 1441. It was later rebuilt for use by Christopher Columbus.

A little to the left is an outline map of The Bahamas, with marked San-Salvador island on it.

Centered are two Cuban amazons on branch of Royal Palm tree.

The Cuban amazon (Amazona leucocephala) also known as Cuban parrot or the rose-throated parrot, is a medium-sized mainly green parrot found in woodlands and dry forests of Cuba, the Bahamas and Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

The Cuban amazon lives in different habitats on different islands. It was once found throughout Cuba, but it is now mainly confined to the forested areas of the main island and Isla de la Juventud. There are about 10,000 individuals in Cuba including an estimated 1,100-1,320 on Isla de la Juventud.

On the Cayman Islands the parrot lives in dry forest and on agricultural land. The population living on Grand Cayman numbers about 3,400 individuals (2006 survey), and the population on Cayman Brac consists of 400-500 individuals. The population on Little Cayman was extirpated in the 1940s.

The populations were estimated at about 3,550 individuals on Abaco and 6,350 on Inagua in 2006. The population on the Acklins and Crooked Islands was extirpated in the 1940s, while it, based on fossil remains and archeological findings, historically also has been present on several other islands in the Bahamas (e.g., New Providence and San Salvador) and on Grand Turk Island.

Bottom left is San Salvador iguana (Cyclura rileyi).

The San Salvador iguana is a strikingly handsome lizard, exhibiting an impressive crest of spiny scales down its back and a variable array of bright and beautiful colors. Varying between subspecies and indeed between individuals, the back can range from red, orange or yellow, to green, brown or grey, usually patterned by darker markings and fine vermiculations. The very brightest colors (red, orange or yellow) are normally only displayed by males, which are especially conspicuous at warmer body temperatures. Juveniles lack these bright colors, being solid brown or grey, usually with a slightly paler band in the middle of the back and faint longitudinal stripes. Body sizes of iguanas vary significantly from cay to cay, and seem to be positively correlated with the diversity of plant food available. (Wildscreen arkive)

On the left side are Caribbean flamingo.

Caribbean Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) are the only flamingo to naturally inhabit North America. They stand between 1.2 and 1.4 m (3.9 - 4.6 ft) in height, they have a wingspan of approximately 1.5 m (4.9 ft) and they weigh between 2.2 and 2.8 kgs (4.9 - 6.2 lbs).

They are deep pink/red/orange in colour and they have the brightest plumage of all flamingo species. As young birds they are grey in colour but their plumage slowly turns pink as they mature. They have long, pink legs with their knees being a slightly darker pink.

Their large bill is downward curving and it is pink in colour with a black tip. They have narrow wings with their primary and secondary flight feathers being black in colour and their wing coverts being red.

Caribbean Flamingos have a loud, deep honking call that is similar to that of a goose. They call loudly during courtship but they have a quieter call while they are feeding. (The animal files)

In top left corner is, again, other side of ancient compass, which, probably, Columbus used in the XV century.

The Coat of Arms of the Bahamas in lower right corner.

The Coat of Arms of the Bahamas contains a shield with the national symbols as its focal point.

The escutcheon (shield) is supported by a marlin and flamingo. The crest on top of the helm (helmet) is a conch shell, which represents the varied marine life of the island chain. Below the helm is the escutcheon itself, whose main charge is a ship, reputed to represent the Santa Maria of Christopher Columbus. It is sailing beneath a sun in the chief. The animals supporting the shield are the national animals, and the national motto is found at the bottom. The flamingo is located upon land, and the marlin upon sea, indicating the geography of the islands.

The vibrant tinctures of the coat of arms are also intended to point to a bright future for the islands. They are also reputed to have been maintained for their attractiveness to tourists.

The Coat of Arms was approved by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II on 7 December 1971 for use by the Bahamian People and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. It was designed by Bahamian artist and clergyman, Rev. Dr. Hervis L. Bain, Jr., who is also a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Denominations in numerals are in top right and lower left corners. In owrds lower, centered.

Comments:

This banknote issued in 1992 as Quincentennial Commemorative to First Landfall in America - San Salvador, Bahamas.

Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (or Ghirlandajo) (14 February 1483 - 6 June 1561) was an Italian Renaissance painter active mainly in Florence. Ridolfo Ghirlandaio was the son of the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio.

The signature on banknote belongs to:

Mr. James H. Smith.

Governor (February 1987- January 1997) Mr. James Smith was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas on 1st February, 1987. Mr. Smith previously served as Permanent Secretary and Secretary for Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, where he was actively involved in the development of fiscal policy. Following his tenure at the Central Bank, Mr. Smith became senator and Government Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance. He also served as Ambassador for Trade and led missions to various countries. Mr. Smith was bestowed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000.